It’s no mystery why you might really like Alabama in a potential BCS title game vs. Notre Dame. No question, the Tide would have to be looked upon by everyone as the favorites.

Las Vegas certainly thinks so. There’s a point spread out there already—as there are for several potential Jan. 7 matchups—and it’s big. No, it’s huge.

Nine points.

Or one fewer than the Irish defense allows per game. But we’ll get back to that in a bit.

A championship-game underdog hasn’t faced odds that long in 10 years. Do you remember what happened at the end of the 2002 season? Ohio State beat a Miami team that was so talented, so respected, so feared that the betting line was 13 points at kickoff. That’s one point for every one of the Buckeyes’ 13 victories heading in.

Jim Tressel’s unbeaten team wasn’t seen as having much of a chance then, and Brian Kelly’s team won’t be seen by millions of folks (y’all know who you are) as having much of a chance now. Not even at 12-0. Not if Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide, who won it all in 2009 and 2011, are blocking the Irish’s path to glory.

Clearly, though, Kelly is a believer. If his votes in the coaches poll—Notre Dame No. 1, shocker—don’t demonstrate that beyond the shadow of a doubt, consider the sentiment he voiced to reporters this week:

“I told our team I felt like they were the best team in the country.”

Bold talk from a pretty conservative guy at a pretty conservative school. But maybe Kelly has the same sense of his team that Tressel did in 2002: that it isn’t built for show; that its parade of narrow victories is not a weakness but a sign of tremendous strength.

Needing to win Saturday at USC to move on to Miami, the Irish remain lost in the moment. Saturday is then; today is now. Even though the Trojans have won nine of 10 in this series. Even though a college football fandom that has long had a love-’em-or-hate-’em relationship with the Irish is dying to see if they’ll blow their first title shot in two dozen years without even stepping into the ring with the defending heavyweight champs.

“It’s still about how we got here,” Kelly said, “and the preparation and how these guys have transformed themselves into champions by their habits and how they go to work every day.”

The coach and his family were in the theater room in their South Bend home last Saturday night, watching higher-ranked dominoes Kansas State and Oregon fall. You have to wonder if an underdog’s feeling swept over him that night. If he imagined the smiles in Tuscaloosa and thought: How we’d love the chance to wipe those off your faces.

There’s a rather incredible trend that may be recurring in 2012. Four Notre Dame coaches—Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine and Lou Holtz—won national championships in their third seasons. Indeed, this is Kelly’s third.

But these Irish may have more things in common with the 2002 Buckeyes than they have with those bygone Notre Dame squads. To name a few:

—Both teams were 6-0 when they first reached the top five of the polls.

—The Irish have won five squeakers (vs. Purdue, Michigan, Stanford, BYU and Pitt), two of them in overtime and three of them over unranked opponents. Those Buckeyes had six tight squeezes, beating three unranked foes by five points or less and going to OT with unranked Illinois before winning by a touchdown.

—The Irish defense has allowed the fewest touchdowns (eight) in the country this season. The 2002 Buckeyes tied with Kansas State for the fewest touchdowns allowed.

Defense was the biggest reason Ohio State, ranked 70th in the country in offense, knew it could play with Miami. And though there’s a bit of a backlash against Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o these days—does he really deserve to be so prominent in the Heisman Trophy conversation?—defense is the biggest reason the Irish, ranked 50th in offense, are certain they can play with the Tide.

There might be some of you who are so “Roll Tide” that you’re saying, “But that Miami team isn’t equal to this Alabama team.” Or so SEC that you’re saying, “But Alabama or Georgia will be tougher to beat than Miami was.”

If you believe that, please know just how utterly wrong you are. Miami had 11 future NFL first-rounders in the starting lineup that night in Tempe, Ariz. To put it another way: That Miami team would’ve been favored over this Bama team.

But we should really get back to the USC game before we end this. Not because the Irish might lose to the Trojans, although clearly they might. Rather, because how many coaches, a few days before the must-win of must-win games, sound like this?

“I don’t think they look at USC and think of dominance,” Kelly said of his players.